Rumours that Google will pull plug on Firefox

While Google's Chrome has been doing rather well it has placed its rival Mozilla Firefox in a tricky position.

Google has been giving Mozilla 84 per cent of its revenue in a search deal which will end in November. Given that Google has been pushing Chrome on the world+dog it is unlikely it will continue to offer is rival any support. Things would be OK for Mozilla if it had used this year to push its dominance and establish itself in business markets.

However statistics from Net Market Share show the decline, with Firefox plunging from 25 per cent to 22 per cent and Chrome rising from under 5 per cent to more than 18 per cent during the last two years. Firefox shot itself in the foot by creating an accelerated development schedule that has alienated enterprise customers who can't have too many updates.

Mozilla has also started getting nasty about Google and, considering the outfit is its most important backer the outfit did not even get a mention in the recent annual report.